


A Sailor's Tale

by Entropy House (AnonEhouse)



Category: Adventures of Sinbad, Drake's Venture (1980)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Entropy%20House
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sinbad retells the story of his life as another famous seaman, Sir Francis Drake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sailor's Tale

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

"And keep thy hennaed beard out of my place, Sindbad!" the innkeeper shouted.

Sindbad picked himself up and glared at the innkeeper and the burly Ethiopian standing beside him with a cudgel heavy enough to brain an ox. "The color is my own, bequeathed me by my father, the Persian emirate, thy renter of doubly-tenanted beds." He plucked a large louse out of his chest hair and threw it down on the courtyard stones, pointing at it. "Ask him to pay his half!"

"You shouldn't have thrown that away, it's all you'll take from my house!"

"What of my possessions? Give me my goods!" Sindbad growled and stepped forward.

The Ethiopian smiled and raised the cudgel. A few bloody red hairs clung to it. Sindbad hesitated. The innkeeper smiled. "Pay the rent by the end of the day, and you may have your rubbish. Else I give it to the rag man for the few coppers it will bring."

"How am I to raise the money so quickly?" Sindbad threw his arms out expansively. "You have mulcted me of the tools of my trade. No one in Basrah will hire me."

"You have yet your lying tongue, o son of the wind. Make use of that!" The innkeeper and his guard went back into the house, slamming the door behind them.

Sindbad tugged on his beard thoughtfully. "Aye, my thanks for the suggestion, o eater of dirt!" He swung on his heel and headed for the main marketplace, where he ducked his head beneath the spouting lion-mouth of a fountain, sputtering and shaking like a dog when he emerged.

A few people were looking at him. He flung his arms wide again, and climbed up to the top of the fountain. "O most fortunate citizens of the most favored of cities, I, Sindbad, am here!" He rapidly climbed down and went over to an elderly seller of pottery, deftly plucking a large bowl from her wares over her protests. "It's all right, mother, you shall have half."

"Half of what?" she said, reaching for the bowl which he held just out of her reach.

"Why half of the copper and perchance silver that will line it!" He sat down under an awning with the bowl before his crossed legs and laughed. "I have tales to tell, stories so wonderful that you have never heard the like, so full of magic and daring—and bloooood," he drawled, looked at a wide-eyed urchin. "But nothing in Basrah comes without a price, my gentle listeners. Come, come, a copper for a fable, a bargain, for my words are silver when they are not gold."

"Gather round, my children—for are we not all children when a good tale is spun? You see by my eyes and hair that I am no common man." Sindbad looked at the empty bowl as a small crowd began forming. "Yet, pains me as it does to admit it, I have all the needs of a common man, including a belly that cries out to be fed." When no money was forthcoming, he said, "What? Does no one wish to learn of the birds that fly through water, or the people who build their cities of gold?"

"I might believe the birds," a man in a carpenter's apron said, "but if you saw a city of gold, then why are you in rags? Surely you would have taken a few cobblestones."

"Cobblestones! Bah, I did more than that! I had a ship so laden with treasure the very bilge water ran gold! I could tell you the story of how that ship was lost, lost in a fury so unnatural..." He blinked and wiped away an imaginary tear. "It all came of taking on a magician as my second; of loving as a brother a man who consorted with evil genii." He stopped and looked at the bowl. "But I see that you are not interested to learn of curses and magic and treasure which may yet be recovered by bold men." Coppers rattled into the bowl. Sindbad smiled. "A little something to soothe my throat?"

A wine-seller poured him a cup, and a fruit merchant gave him a handful of dates. "Ah." Sindbad drank and munched for a moment. "As sweet as these are, they are nothing to the fruits of the coscos—great trees like the scaled legs of the roc stretching up to heads of green feathers, with fruit as big and hard as cornerstones, yet filled with sweet water and candied flesh."

"Tell us about the treasure!" A man shouted, and the rest of the crowd agreed, all save the little boy who yelled for blood. 

Sindbad grinned and tossed the boy a date. "Blood and gold, blood and gold, what good's a tale without both?" He looked around the crowd, taking the measure of their clothing and adornments and estimating how much money they could easily spare. Enough, it was enough. "I was not always as you see me now, ragged and alone, despised for my poverty, although my heart is as a lions' still. Once I was the captain-general of a fleet of treasure seekers!"

"A fleet?" asked a man's voice. Sindbad couldn't see him in the crowd, but he heard the disbelief in his voice. Disbelief and the tones of an educated man. Education was expensive... if he could get the owner of that voice to pay...

"Yea, verily! A small fleet, it is true, but crewed by toughened seamen, elegant gentleman and soldiers beyond compare. A sharpened dagger is far more effective than a blunt ax."

The same unseen man said quietly, "A pithy adage. Speak on, o Sindbad of the silver tongue."

"A piece of silver would enrich my tale greatly, o noble and generous one."

"You are a greedy rogue, Sindbad." A shining gold coin as big as Sindbad's fist flew over the crowd, to land with a heavy clatter into the center of the bowl of coins. "Speak on, yet know this, if thy tale not be worth the coin, it shall be worth thy head."

Sindbad stood up and searched the crowd. A man wearing a green turban signifying his descent from the family of the prophet sat on a richly harnessed fine-blooded horse. His dark eyes met Sindbad's sea-blue ones. Sindbad smiled and said, "An thou let the crowd decide my fate, I shall be well satisfied, o most noble and high one." 

The noble nodded. "Let it be so. Tell your tale."

Sindbad sat down, heart racing. This was the true gamble. He laughed for purest joy, and began telling the most fabulous lies- he had never sailed beyond sight of land, and the greatest creatures he's ever seen have been the fish he caught in the nets the innkeeper holds to ransom. The sun crept lower over the market, with merchants moving their awnings to match, and the crowd grew as the story of Sindbad's gamble with the noble spread. 

The merchants were well satisfied, for the crowd stayed and bought. The pile of coin grew in Sindbad's bowl, an occasional copper joining the one gleaming gold piece. As it was growing dark, Sindbad remembered his bargain with the innkeeper, and plucked three silver coins from the bowl. He waved over the blood-thirsty boy who had crept close to lean against his legs, listening with shining eyes.

"Here, boy. Go to the innkeeper on the street of the blue dolphin and redeem my goods. Two coins will be enough. The third is for you." 

The boy grinned, clenched the money tightly in one dirty fist and flew off, vanishing in the crowd, like a mouse into the walls.

Sindbad doubted he'd see his goods or the boy again, but he didn't care. If it chanced that this was his last day on Earth it would be an act of charity that Allah would surely approve. And if he should win his wager, why, he could buy scores of nets—or even a small boat of his very own, and truly be the captain of his dreams.

Sindbad talked until he was hoarse. Lamp lighters lit torches around the market as Sindbad told of heroic deeds and infamous ones, painting himself as an adventurer who would do anything for success. When he slew his best friend in order to keep control of an unruly crew, men's eyes darkened, and women wept beneath their veils. His voice failed, and he coughed, drinking deep from the wine jug beside him. Perhaps he had drunk too deeply. In his enthusiasm for a good tale, he'd made himself a villain.

The nakib of the green turban smiled, his even, white teeth gleaming by torch-light. "I call for the decision of the people!" He flung a handful of coins into the bowl, none as large as the first he'd given, but all ruddy gold. "And remember, if Sindbad dies, his property is divided amongst you."

Sindbad's mouth dried. He hadn't expected this. He looked into the deep, dark eyes of the noble, and saw an unreasoning hate.

The blood-thirsty boy emerged from the crowd. "O noble one, how shall Sindbad die, if we judge it be thus?"

"By the ax. A very blunt one." The noble's smile widened. "His lying head shall be hacked off and spitted on a pike at the city gate as a warning to all such liars."

Sindbad's heart sunk. He began praying to Allah that the axman might, of mercy, substitute a sharpened blade, but risking the ire of this nobleman seemed something only a fool like Sindbad would do. 

The boy turned now to the crowd, wide-eyed. "Do you hear? We should have the honor of ending this teller of tall tales! And all others." The boy looked thoughtful. "It is a shame, because I like marketplace tales. But of course, if Sindbad should die for his lies, then he should. And what does it matter if the gold has blood on it? Would Allah truly blame us, and wish us misfortune for causing a man's death so we might prosper?" He put down a bundle in front of Sindbad. "I am only a beggar boy, but I am not poor enough to steal a man's life. Here are your possessions, o Sindbad." He put two silver coins into the bowl. "One coin was enough for the innkeeper."

Sindbad smiled. "Sindbad is the most fortunate of men. Even tho' I die this day, I have had one true friend."

After the crowd ruled for Sindbad, the noble rode off, lashing his horse cruelly. Sindbad divided the coins in the bowl with the old woman, and put the rest into his purse. He looked down at the boy. "Wouldst thou wish to be a sailor, lad?"

The boy grinned. "Yes, Captain Sindbad!"

Sindbad ruffled the boy's hair. "Then come with me and we shall purchase a boat. What is thy name, lad?"

"I am Te'oma. Te'oma the small, they call me."

Sindbad picked up Te'oma and set him on his shoulder. "Now you shall be Te'oma the great." He started off with Te'oma clinging to his hair and laughing.


End file.
